Posts Tagged ‘2009’

Executive keynote presenters from Forrester Research, Hewlett-Packard, Intuit, Xerox, Intel, Welchman Pierpoint, Portland Trail Blazers and more; sharing their insights and ideas about Internet strategy — How to best leverage the Internet & integrate it into business strategy.

Having attended this conference last year, I had huge expectations for the 6th Annual Conference, and to my delight, all my expectations were once again satisfied in excess.

Featuring highly respected speakers from some of the world’s most established brands, the Internet Strategy Forum has once again provided a highly detailed and thorough conference which allowed these business giants to share their unique insights into how their organizations have been able to leverage the power of the internet, and to develop their brands and following while decreasing overall marketing expenses through Social Media strategies.

As was the case last year, and which I hope to continue in years to come, I posted many of the key points to my Twitter Stream (@CommunityMGR), and the following are the key points which were included in my stream…

Shortly after the Internet Strategy Forum Summit West in Portland, OR last week, I stumbled upon an excellent article written by Amber Case that visually graphs the Twitter trends, volume, and buzz from the ISF Conference.

Not surprisingly to myself nor @TaylorBarr, quite a few of my tweets were picked up in this blog post, and I wanted to share it with those interested in tracking and visualizing Twitter trends, volume, and “buzz” resulting from events.

Staff photo by Harry Lynch – Employees James Wong, Taylor Barr and Julie Frye Sanders, left to right, of iContact take their turn on ‘Karaoke Friday’ as they belt the out the words to ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’ by the Crash Test Dummies.

Starting in early 2009, Taylor Barr and myself decided to host a Karaoke show on Fridays during lunch time, as a way to boost morale and to make Fridays a little more entertaining for our co-workers. Considering the gloomy economic outlook, and the constant bad news in the media today, we figured that we would help to combat those negative feelings through music.

We of course, use the term “music” quite loosely, as karaoke is more of a form of entertainment than it is a musical showcase. Using some karaoke software, a projector, and some speakers, we’ve managed to take a shared past-time, and create a morale boosting experience that truly embodies that culture and spirit of the company we work for, iContact Corporation.

We were especially excited to be featured in this past Sunday’s edition of the News & Observer. The following is a quote from their article:

“At iContact, the recent addition of “Karaoke Fridays” is one way the Durham technology company hopes to keep employees excited about coming to work. The company, which provides e-mail marketing services, is still expanding despite the downturn.”You hear all the stuff about the stock market, job losses,” said Taylor Barr, who helped organize the singing with co-worker James Wong. “This is a great way to boost morale. It gets people smiling.”

The company also holds monthly employee lunches, has free bagels on Mondays and organizes trips to Carolina Hurricanes hockey games and other sporting events. The perks are another way to attract and retain top talent.

The karaoke singing at noon on Fridays is broadcast live online so that workers still at their desks can watch, too.

“It definitely alleviates tension, gives you a sense of camaraderie with your co-workers,” said Julie Frye Sanders, a marketing manager who sang “Love Shack” and several other tunes during a recent Friday session.”